1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to electronic systems, and more particularly, in one or more embodiments, to signal transmission in electronic systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
In electronic data transmission, various schemes have been used to enhance the accuracy of data transmission over unwanted noise. Among such schemes, differential signaling has been widely used. Differential signaling refers to a scheme in which a transmitting component sends two signals having opposite polarity to each other to a receiving component over a channel that includes a pair of electrically conductive lines. The receiving component detects a difference between the two signals and determines the state of the signals. Because the two signals are affected by noise to substantially the same degree, the scheme can substantially reduce transmission errors due to noise.
As the geometry of electronic devices (e.g., integrated circuits) has been downscaled, there have been attempts to reduce space for data channels. Differential signaling, however, requires at least two lines per data channel. Furthermore, in certain applications using a differential signaling scheme, separate lines for control signals are also needed for the operation of the receiving component in addition to the data channels.